The Angel of Frost

III.

Glaucus had expected to be thrown back into the safe sanctuary that was Heaven. He did not expect this.

Lucifer stood before him, his handsome face trapped in a hideous body of scaly skin and bat wings. His sharp teeth were bared in a wide grin. Glaucus felt like a sheep about to be gutted by a wolf.

He dropped the two bodies he was carrying and spread his wings to shield them. He noticed the water on one of his arms. Levi was thawing soon. Glaucus didn't know whether that was bad or good.

Lucifer raised his hands in mock innocence. "Whoa, chill out, ice guy. You're on my home turf." He sneered, knowing that Glaucus was at a major disadvantage.

"I think you forgot to turn down the temperature in your abode, Lucifer." In three seconds, Glaucus felt the temperature cool down from the blazing heat of a glorious sun to the warmth of a small fireplace. He glanced at the nymph. She was strong, he thought, being able to survive the heat of the sun in close proximity. But her eyes had to be shielded. He didn't want to push his luck.

"I suppose that you want me to turn off the lights too," Lucifer said. The crimson rock he was standing on was cracked from the constant tremors emanating from Hell's core, an orange sun deep within the earth.

"If you want the nymph to avoid the fate of dying from getting her eyes fried, then no one's stopping you. Though I guess that would be the least of your priorities."

Lucifer clapped, and each time his hands were brought together, Glaucus tried his best not to try and strangle the demon. "Smart, as always. Yes, you're right. I've sent, or rather, taken you here to tell you an interesting bit of gossip. True gossip."

"True, in the sense that it is genuine, or true, in the sense that it is factual and not one of the thousands of lies you have told?"

"The latter. You see, this nymph's mother," he said as he pointed an accusing finger at Hasuma, his signature move, "is conspiring with this infidel." He moved the finger to Levi, who was half awake.

Typical demon, Glaucus thought, blaming others and never taking responsibility for his own actions. Unfortunately, that certain characteristic was one that mortals also had. Glaucus began to wonder whether he should even trust them. Such as the nymph behind his wings.

He shook the thoughts out of his head. He wasn't going to let Lucifer plant doubts in his mind. He'd had enough of them already.

"So," the demon said as he theatrically twirled a hand in the air, "let me make a deal with you. Kill them, and you will gain unimaginable power."

Glaucus felt once more the sting of his past. He had wondered why he hadn't gone insane from the pain of remembering every single memory, but now, he knew why. "No thanks. I've had enough of it."

Lucifer gathered a reply, but he was interrupted by a grunt coming from behind Glaucus. Levi stood up, his head peeking through the wings of ice. "Is that...Lucifer!?"

The father of lies inwardly flinched, not because of fear, but because of the savage force that came from the demon's burst of anger. He was running out of time. He had to collect these wretched beings' souls now or lose his chance to escape this place.

Levi swiftly morphed into a small stream of water, flowing through the space between Glaucus' wing and foot. Then slowly, he rose, until he menacingly towered over his adversary as a massive thin, sharp wave of blue water. He brought himself down like an executioner would bring down his ax.

Lucifer condensed the essence of the lake of fire and his own black soul into a ball of obsidian fire over his palm, then threw it. The water disintegrated as it was engulfed by darkness, and Levi, wounded and burnt, was thrown from the fading wave in the direction of his brother.

Glaucus had made no small effort to save his brother, as he had raised a wall of soft and durable snow to cushion his brother and protect himself in advance. Levi burst from the wall, his momentum only slowed slightly.

He desperately fired a beam of ice to stop his brother from crashing into him, and Levi was frozen midair. Then he summoned a cold breeze, one that was very much hard to find in the scorched landscape of Hell. It lifted the frozen demon up and deposited him behind Glaucus' wing.

Lucifer smirked, his canines elongated in amusement. "It must be troublesome to have him around. Why not kill him and escape this place? You do know that I'm the one keeping you here, right?"

Glaucus curled his lip in a smug smile. Levi had been rash, but he had given them all enough time to be located by the archangel Gabriel. He could sense a literal stairway to Heaven radiating a golden glow somewhere in this place.

He silently readied his wings, subtly aiming their feathers at Lucifer. The devil would never even consider leaving him alive in this place. He knew that this was going to be his only chance to find the stairway. Once there, Lucifer would be unable to do anything but watch as his prey was taken away from him.

"Well? Are you going to kill them, or do I have to turn the thermostat up back to normal?"

Glaucus fired a storm of cold feathers at Lucifer, engulfing him in the coldest blizzard he could muster in the heat inside Hell. Then once more, he picked up Levi and Hasuma, charged towards the air, and left a trail of chilling snow in his wake that quickly melted in the hot air.

The stairway wasn't hard to find. Glaucus just had to focus on the only trace of Heaven in the fiery sky, and it showed itself to him, piercing the black clouds with a holy beam of pure light, and bringing down a golden stairway.

Glaucus was right; Lucifer could only stand and watch, but not before he roared in rage and sent a swarm of ugly, sadistic imps to reclaim his prey. The imps flew in a formation creating a hand with long claws struggling to reach the angel. One claw was brought down, but it collided against an invisible barrier just as he went out of reach.

Lucifer's rage summoned another unholy roar from his lungs, and somewhere, a volcano erupted.

*

Any comments? Stuff that I missed? Loopholes?

If so, thanks! :3